11–20 of 311 posts
"Dindim" is a slang for money in Brazil, but in a very cute way. "Money" is "dinheiro" in Portuguese so Dindim is like saying the first part of the word twice.
> It's technically illegal to have a wild animal as a pet in Brazil, as officials want to ensure vulnerable creatures don't get separated from their families and that they can be reintroduced into the wild after injury. Same where I am. I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? For example, I give peanuts to the wild squirrels around my house. This is not illegal where I live. It is illegal, however, to keep a w…
If anything actually separates us from the animals, it's not these things- it's things like music appreciation or creativity. All the other experiential things we're familiar with seem to be shared with them.
(And yet... I continue to eat bacon. sigh. I've met pigs that were clearly happy to see a friendly face of any species... haunts me, actually.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you recall any specific methods for preventing imprinting?
Handlers wear sock puppets resembling the target species, and interact via the puppet while the human face pretends to be ignoring the action. If the animals imprint on the puppet, it stops existing when the handler takes it off, and the nearest alternatives are live animals of their own species.
Do they perceive the "stops existing" as dying? Should the handler remove the sock puppet out of view of the animal?
> It's technically illegal to have a wild animal as a pet in Brazil, as officials want to ensure vulnerable creatures don't get separated from their families and that they can be reintroduced into the wild after injury. Same where I am. I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? For example, I give peanuts to the wild squirrels around my house. This is not illegal where I live. It is illegal, however, to keep a w…
> It's technically illegal to have a wild animal as a pet in Brazil, as officials want to ensure vulnerable creatures don't get separated from their families and that they can be reintroduced into the wild after injury. Same where I am. I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? For example, I give peanuts to the wild squirrels around my house. This is not illegal where I live. It is illegal, however, to keep a w…
> I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? We don't need categories to be so rigid. I have some squirrels in the yard who recognise me and follow me around until I feed them. I call them 'yard pets'. Sometimes they come into the house when they are too excited, but I've never had trouble escorting them out. I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if th…
For the purposes of law we do.
> I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if they are wild.
And yet there is a case to be made for these laws to prevent animals from abuse, etc. These kinds of laws are usually well-served by having an attached definition of what constitutes a pet as it is used in the law. The more defined a law is, the less likely it is to get in the way where it isn't supposed to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Handlers wear sock puppets resembling the target species, and interact via the puppet while the human face pretends to be ignoring the action. If the animals imprint on the puppet, it stops existing when the handler takes it off, and the nearest alternatives are live animals of their own species.
Is that confusing or damaging to the animal? Do they perceive the "stops existing" as dying? Should the handler remove the sock puppet out of view of the animal?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? We don't need categories to be so rigid. I have some squirrels in the yard who recognise me and follow me around until I feed them. I call them 'yard pets'. Sometimes they come into the house when they are too excited, but I've never had trouble escorting them out. I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if th…
> We don't need categories to be so rigid. For the purposes of law we do. > I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if they are wild. And yet there is a case to be made for these laws to prevent animals from abuse, etc. These kinds of laws are usually well-served by having an attached definition of what constitutes a pet as it is used in the law. The more de…
No we don't. That's why we have judges
> It's technically illegal to have a wild animal as a pet in Brazil, as officials want to ensure vulnerable creatures don't get separated from their families and that they can be reintroduced into the wild after injury. Same where I am. I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? For example, I give peanuts to the wild squirrels around my house. This is not illegal where I live. It is illegal, however, to keep a w…
i didn’t quite consider them my pets but they certainly weren’t wild any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've wondered, though. What constitutes a pet? We don't need categories to be so rigid. I have some squirrels in the yard who recognise me and follow me around until I feed them. I call them 'yard pets'. Sometimes they come into the house when they are too excited, but I've never had trouble escorting them out. I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if th…
> We don't need categories to be so rigid. For the purposes of law we do. > I don't particularly like the idea of laws getting in the way of my relationship with animals, even if they are wild. And yet there is a case to be made for these laws to prevent animals from abuse, etc. These kinds of laws are usually well-served by having an attached definition of what constitutes a pet as it is used in the law. The more de…
It's consensual, the squirrels enjoy the interaction and so do I. Either is free to defect anytime.
Fun fact. Squirrels in most north american cities are not wild creatures, they were deliberately introduced into parks to create what was called 'communal pets'.
The thinking was that the need to care for them would be a positive influence on people.
There is a paper on it:
The Urbanization of the Eastern Gray Squirrel in the United States Etienne Benson J Am Hist (2013) 100 (3): 691-710.